All business owners should prioritize people in the same way as other, more usual, business KPIs, believes Beavertown Brewery’s Marketing Director, Tom Rainsford. 

Speaking in July at MAD//Fest, Rainsford elaborated, “Surely people are the most important thing to your business, right? Because ultimately, without people, you don't have a business, you don't have people doing stuff. You don't have people buying stuff. So surely people are the most important thing?” 

Rainsford outlined that, at Beavertown Brewery, people are everything. “My absolute strong belief is the closer you can get from your brand strategy, to your culture strategy the better. If you want people to be advocates about your brand, you have to start with the people internally. If the people that work for you don't love it, you’ve got a bit of a problem." 

The Industrial Revolution was more about people than a change in technology.

We need to be a bit nicer to each other

Gallup the well-known research company, recently carried out a poll and found that there is a 70% variance between having a great boss and feeling productive, satisfied and engaged and having a bad boss and not. Rainsford neatly summarised this to, “70% of our Monday mornings down to the people that we work for.” 

We all have probably sent or received a work email on a Sunday evening. If the latter, Rainsford was pretty blunt about what you thought of the person who sent it, “... you’re a fu*king asshole!” What is so important that it can’t wait until Monday morning? “We need to change our behaviour and the motivations behind our behaviour.” 

Mobile phones are a weapon

“The greatest trick that modern capitalism told us was that we are in control of being able to do our emails and work from anywhere.” Rainsford asked whether the idea of ‘being in control’ would ever promote the sending of an email whilst you were on holiday, (or on a Sunday night)?

“Who is actually in control of that moment? It is not you! It might be your phone. It might be your work, but it is not you. It's the greatest trick to make us believe that being connected all the time, wherever we are in the world is a good thing… We have to question these things feeding the status quo!”

Don't send Tom Rainsford an email on Sunday night - he'll be watching Matt Baker and Countryfile

Change is inevitable, growth is an option.

Rainsford finished by saying that as quickly as we have adapted to being slaves of the ‘always on’ business culture, where being busy and knackered during the week is seen as a good trait, we can evolve out of it as fast as we evolved into it. “ The acceptance of change will benefit the businesses that we work for… If we can align our work with our personal purposes, the business will benefit!” 

Over 8,000 people attended MAD//Fest on 6-7 July. Speakers included Rachel Waller, Global VP Innovation, Burberry, Sarah Barron, CMO, Domino's, Peter Zillig, Marketing Director, Ford Europe, Susan Hoffman, W+K, and author & broadcaster, David Baddiel. Full sessions are available now on our YouTube channel.